In all areas of manufacturing, there is a desire for automation. With this, the demand for automatic workpiece exchange exists very strongly. The known mechanisms in which the machined workpiece is removed from the clamping or working position in the machine with a swingable gripping mechanism and another simultaneously swingable gripping mechanism moves a new blank workpiece into the working position, cannot be used in all machines because the requisite space for such swingable gripping mechanisms is not always available. The use of pallet magazines where feed and discharge of workpieces occurs from one side of the machine, through the clamping or working position, to the other side of the machine often cannot be used, due to an existing workpiece transport system being provided on only one side of the machine.
Therefore, a basic purpose of the invention is to develop a method and an apparatus with which blank workpieces which have been moved to a first side of the machine with any desired transport mechanism can be moved to the working position and the machined workpieces can be moved in the opposite direction to a mechanism for effecting further transport, which mechanism is also on the first side of the machine. The drive arrangement needed for the various feed, return and gripping movements is to be kept to a minimum.